Ever wonder what it would be like to live in the world of Man Men’s Don Draper? George Parker has been in advertising for a long time—since ‘before any of you were born,’ he told the audience at the PSFK CONFERENCE SAN FRANCISCO. And as you can imagine, he has quite a few stories about that age of advertising on Madison Avenue, chronicled in his book Confessions of a Mad Man, selections of which he has been kind enough to share with PSFK.

From debauchery on the open seas as a young man, to wrangling seaside crows for a mad Hollywood director, George recounted the highs and lows (but mostly substance-induced highs) of filming, gallivanting and traveling around the world. Take twenty minutes and have a laugh, you might just learn something.

The take away from George’s talk: In advertising, be very precise and very hard. And don’t forget to ‘make the bastards pay!’